Wikibooks:Protected page

This page documents an official Wikibooks policy that the Wikibooks community has accepted and Wikibookians must follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an edit war, upon request (see below).

Protecting a page that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.

Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug.

Admins should not protect pages when they have been involved in the edit war in question (either by actively editing the page or by holding strong opinions about the content). Administrative tools are not editor privileges - administrators act as servants to the user community at large. If you are an admin and you want a page in an edit war in which you are somehow involved to be protected, you should contact another admin and ask them to protect the page for you.

In general, pages should not be left protected for very long, and discussion pages should be left open. Indefinite page protection should almost never be used.

Types and levels of page protection

Levels of protection

Full protection

Only administrators may make changes

Semi protection

Users must wait until autoconfirmed to make changes

Types of protection

Create protection

Restricts page creation

Edit protection

Restricts page editing

Move protection

Restricts page moving

Cascading protection

Can only be used with full edit and move protection. This protects the page, and all pages transcluded into it, and all images used on it (if they are local).

Editing protected pages

Administrators should be cautious in editing semi-permanently protected pages, and do so in accordance with consensus and any specific guidelines on the subject. In many cases it is appropriate for an administrator to first raise the issue on the relevant talk page, as any other user would have to do.

In cases of temporary page protection, administrators should refrain from editing pages while they are protected. They should not continue editing content while people with different points of view who are not admins are unable to do so. There are, however, a few times when it maybe appropriate to edit such a page: